Exploring dissociation

Clare,

I've met a woman with dissociative personality disorder…
At a college that I worked at years ago...
she was incredibly intelligent…
had 6 or 7 personalities…
and each had its specific role to help her negotiate life.
Talk about stereotypes…
her male personality was good at math and science, so he emerged for those classes.
She had a 3 year old personality that would emerge when someone threatened her.
That personality held all of the memory of abuse.
There was one organizing personality who held all of the memories, schedules, etc…
she orchestrated the emergence of personalities…
The real woman couldn't figure out what was going on…
she kept having periods of amnesia.

Anyway, the dissociation occurs when we are faced with a hopeless situation…
we are overwhelmed and helpless…
dissociation is actually a gift…
it allows prey animals to separate mind and body before they are killed by a predator.
They feel no pain…
much like a person in a near death experience describes floating above, observing the whole experience in a detached, painless way.
Fight- flight or freeze- dissociation is the freeze.
When a person or animal is abused- made helpless and hopeless- they can teach themselves to dissociate. Whenever they are threatened it is a learned reaction.
In the therapy room people will dissociate when telling their trauma stories…
they tell without emotion…
because they are not attached to their memories or emotions.
Many people experience amnesia around their trauma because their brains dissociated and cannot acknowledge it happened to them.

I think I learned to dissociate early…
I had vivid daydreams that felt as if I left my body.
I remember them first at the house where our youngest sister was born.
The timing is similar to the first memories of molestation…
which is one of the reasons it was more than children's games or curiosity-
which was my excuse for years to ignore it.

I dropped my dog off this morning, she was trembling. She had a seizure at 5 am, so I had to bathe her this morning. I got very little sleep. My older son had car trouble on his way to S#5's house. Husband had to go and pick him up and complete the trip. He didn't return until 3 am because he got a call for a procedure at 1 am. I fell asleep between 12 and 1. Woke up at 3. Woke at 5 and then up for the day at 6. I have to drive back to pick the dog up this afternoon, about 1 and a half hour drive to the hospital. I need another weekend.

I'll check back in tomorrow,
Love and Light,
Maggie